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Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 sci-fi-comedy film. The film was released in the United States on June 8, 1984. It was produced and directed by Ivan Reitman and stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, and Ernie Hudson. The film's original release grossed almost US $230 million in the U.S. and $50 million abroad during its theatrical run, making it the biggest grossing film of 1984. It was followed by a sequel, Ghostbusters II (1989), and two animated television series, The Real Ghostbusters (later renamed Slimer! And the Real Ghostbusters) and Extreme Ghostbusters. The movie is most known for it's No-Ghost Sign, the quote "Who you gonna Call?", Ghostbusters Theme Song, and Ecto-1 hearse. Plot Synopsis Three misfit parapsychology research professors that specialize in ghosts, Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), "Raymond" Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), are kicked out of a New York City University after their research grants are terminated. .]] They then investigated a haunting at the New York City Public Library and after seeing some very interesting book stacking then encounter a ghost. They run out of the Library. They decided they would take matters into they own hands and they start an enterprise named "Ghostbusters", a "professional paranormal investigation and elimination service", out of a old firehouse, using a 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Ambulance dubbed "Ecto-1" to get about the city and hiring Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) to handle the phones. Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) of 55 Central Park West, comes to the ghostbusters and asks for their help. The ghostbusters do a few tests and such to determine she isn't crazy, and then she explains to the Ghostbusters of a paranormal experience in her kitchen centering around the name "Zuul". Peter sees the opportunity to get romantically closer to Dana, and goes with her to the apartment. Using the Ghost Sniffer checks out the place, finds nothing in the main room, then looks at the kitchen and finds some weird stuff but no ghost activity or residue. Meanwhile, their funds are nearly dried up eating their last food, Janine gets a call with a serious client, and she rings the Bell. The ghostbusters run and get dressed, then leave in the Ecto-1. They show up at Sedgewick Hotel and the Hotel manager tells them that they have been recently problems with a resident ghost. The Peter finds the ghost which then slimes him. Egon finds that the ghost is now at a ballroom. They go into the room and as they bust the ghost they destroy the room and make tons of racket. However they are successful, both at using their nuclear accelerator "Proton pack" and "Ghost Trap" for the first time, and at capturing the ghost. They find themselves an overnight success across both New York City and the nation, and the volume of calls requires the team to hire a fourth member, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson).Also due to popularity Walter Peck (William Atherton) from the United States Environmental Protection Agency comes to the firehouse trying to take a look at the Storage facility which Peter refuses to do. Peck then explains his plan to disprove them, and that he thinks they are frauds. attacks and possesses Dana]] One night Dana has just got home and was taking on the phone about that ghostbuster and after the call she was relaxing and all the sudden she gets grabbed by arms that come out of her chair. She is taken in to the other room that the Terror Dog is at. Meanwhile, Louis Tully (Rick Moranis), another resident of the apartments, is hosting a party when all the sudden a Big Dog (really a Terror dogs) attacks, and chases him out of the building and to a restaurant where the dog possesses him. Then back at Dana's apartment Peter makes a visit but quickly finds that Dana isn't herself or even acting human. Later the cops bring Louis to the Firehouse and ask Egon if he'd take him being that the cops think its not a normal events. Egon recognizes that Louis, brought to him by the Cops was possessed by Vinz Clortho or in other words, the "Keymaster". He takes him in. Peter later calls Egon to conform a problem on his side when Egon conforms that he has the Keymaster there. Walter obtains an court order to shut the grid down, and unable to stop them, the team flees the firehouse as the grid collapses and hundreds of freed ghosts flood the city. In the chaos, the possessed Louis gets free and makes his way back to 55 Central. Walter orders the Ghostbusters arrested while the ghosts create panic across the city. While waiting in jail, the team recognizes that the design of 55 Central was purposely made to bring Gozer into being, acting as a giant antenna to collect spiritual turbulence, and should Gozer be allowed into the world, the world would end. The mayor (David Margulies) orders the release of the Ghostbusters from jail, allowing them to get to work to prevent the potential catastrophe overriding Walter's demends. Assisted by the police and Army, the Ghostbusters make their way to the top of 55 Central. They are too late to prevent Dana and Louis from meeting, and as they release energy to open a dimensional gate on the top of the building, they are turned back into the dog-beast forms. When Gozer (Slavitza Jovan) emerges in a female humanoid form, the team tries to shoot her with their packs, but fail to harm her. Gozer disappears, and tells them to select the next form it takes, and though the team tries to blank their minds, Ray is unable to not think about the most innocent being he could imagine: the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The team finds that a giant version of the mascot has begun to lay waste to the city as it makes its way to 55 Central and starts climbing the building. The proton packs are useless against it, but Egon realizes that the only way to end the destruction is to "cross the stream", creating a "total protonic reversal" that would destroy Gozer and the interdimensional gate, despite the fact that they themselves may die from that act. As the giant creature reaches the top of the building, the team executes Egon's plan, causing the gate to explode and burning the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man away into large amounts of liquid marshmellow fluff. The Ghostbusters not only find that they have all survived, but that both Dana and Louis have returned to their normal unpossessed human forms. The team is cheered on as they leave the building and drive away. Development The concept was inspired by Aykroyd's own fascination with the paranormal, and it was conceived by Aykroyd as a vehicle for himself and friend and fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus John Belushi. The original story as written by Aykroyd was very different than what would be eventually filmed. In that version a group of Ghostbusters would travel through time, space and other dimensions taking on huge ghosts (of which the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man was just one of many). Also, the Ghostbusters wore S.W.A.T.-like outfits and used wands instead of Proton Packs to fight the ghosts; Ghostbusters storyboards show them wearing riotsquad-type helmets with movable transparent visors. Aykroyd pitched his story to director / producer Ivan Reitman, who liked the basic idea but immediately saw the budgetary impossibilities demanded by Aykroyd's first draft. At Reitman's suggestion, the story was given a major overhaul, eventually evolving into the final screenplay which Aykroyd and Ramis hammered out over the course of three weeks in a Martha's Vineyard bomb shelter. Aykroyd and Ramis initially wrote the script with roles written especially for Belushi, Eddie Murphy and John Candy. However, Belushi died due to a drug overdose during the writing of the screenplay, and neither Murphy nor Candy could commit to the movie due to prior engagements, so Aykroyd and Ramis shifted some of these changes around and polished a basic, yet sci-fi oriented screenplay for their final draft. In addition to Aykroyd's high-concept basic premise and Ramis' skill at grounding the fantastic elements with a realistic setting, the film benefits from Bill Murray's semi-improvisational performance as Peter Venkman, the character initially intended for Belushi. The extent of Murray's improvisation while delivering his lines varies wildly with every re-telling of the making of the film; some say he never even read the script, and improvised so much he deserves a writing credit, while others insist that he only improvised a few lines, and used his deadpan comic delivery to make scripted lines seem spontaneous. The Ghostbusters DVD credits Ramis' writing with nearly all of Murray's lines. Louis Tully was originally conceived to be a conservative man in a business suit played by comedian John Candy, but Candy was unable to commit to the role. The role was taken by Rick Moranis, portraying Louis as a geek. Gozer was originally going to appear in the form of Ivo Shandor as a slender, unremarkable man in a suit played by Paul Reubens. In the end, the role was played by Yugoslavian model Slavitza Jovan, whose Eastern European accent (later dubbed by Paddi Edwards) caused Gozer's line of "choose and perish" to sound like "Jews and berries" to the crew's amusement. Harold Ramis had no intention of acting in any role in the film. He planned on only helping Aykroyd write the screenplay. However, the crew struggled to cast the role of Egon Spengler, even after renowned actors such as Chevy Chase, Michael Keaton, Christopher Walken, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd and Jeff Goldblum were considered. Feeling he knew the character best since he created him, Ramis accepted the role of Egon. He credits this move in revitalizing his acting career, as Ramis basically focused on off-screen work such as writing and directing before this. Winston Zeddemore was written with Eddie Murphy in mind, but he had to decline the role as he was filming Beverly Hills Cop at the same time. If Murphy had been cast, Zeddemore would have been hired much earlier in the film, and would've accompanied the trio on their hunt for Slimer at the hotel and be slimed in place of Peter Venkman. When Ernie Hudson took over, it was decided that he be brought in later to indicate how the Ghostbusters were struggling to keep up with the outbreak of ghosts. Gozer's temple was the biggest and most expensive set ever to be constructed at that time. In order to properly light it and create the physical effects for the set, other stages needed to be shut down and all their power diverted over to the set. The hallway sets for the Sedgewick Hotel were originally built for the movie Rich and Famous in 1981 and patterned after the Algonquin Hotel in New York City, where Reitman originally wanted to do the hotel bust. The Biltmore Hotel was chosen because the large lobby allowed for a tracking shot of the Ghostbusters in complete gear for the first time. Dana Barrett and Louis Tully's apartments were constructed across two stages and were actually on the other side of their doors in the hallway, an unusual move in filmmaking. A problem arose during filming when it was discovered that a show was produced in 1975 by Filmation for CBS called The Ghost Busters, starring Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker. (It should be noted that this show's title is written as two words instead of one word like the 1984 movie.) Columbia Pictures prepared a list of alternative names just in case the rights could not be secured, but during the filming of the crowd for the final battle, the extras were all chanting "Ghostbusters", which inspired the producers to insist that the studio buy the rights to the name. For the test screening of Ghostbusters, half of the ghost effects were missing, not yet having been completed by the production team. The audience response was still enthusiastic, and the ghost elements were completed for the official theatrical release shortly thereafter. In the middle of the film's initial release, to keep interest going, Ivan Reitman had a trailer run, which was basically the same commercial that the Ghostbusters use in the movie, but with the 555 number replaced with a 1-800 number, allowing people to call. They got a recorded message of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd saying something to the effect of "Hi. We're out catching ghosts right now." They got 1,000 calls per hour, 24 hours a day, for six weeks. Their promotion was similar to that of a calling service offered by the production of The Empire Strikes Back. Deleted Scenes Main Characters Dr. Peter Venkman Dr. Peter Venkman (portrayed by Bill Murray) Dr. Ray Stantz Dr. Raymond Stantz (portrayed by Dan Aykroyd) Dr. Egon Spengler Dr. Egon Spengler (portrayed by Harold Ramis) Winston Zeddemore Winston Zeddemore (portrayed by Ernie Hudson) Louis Tully Louis Tully (portrayed by Rick Moranis) Dana Barrett Dana Barrett (portrayed by Sigourney Weaver) Minor Characters *Janine Melnitz (portrayed by Annie Potts) *Walter Peck (portrayed by William Atherton) *Mayor Lenny (portrayed by David Margulies) *Archbishop (portrayed by Tom Mcdermott) *Alice the librarian (portrayed by Alice Drummond) *Cosmonaut guy (portrayed by Murray Rubin) *Dean Yager (portrayed by Jordan Charney) *Hotel manager (portrayed by Michael Ensign) *Jennifer (portrayed by Jennifer Runyon) *Mrs. Van Hoffman (portrayed by Kathryn Janssen) *Roger Delicore (portrayed by John Rothman) *Ted and Annette Fleming (portrayed by Paul Trafas and Cheryl Birchenfield) Villain Ghosts *Stay Puft Marshmallow Man *Slimer (voiced by Ivan Reitman) *Gozer (portrayed by Slavitzva Jovan)(voiced by Paddi Edwards) *(Terror dogs)Zuul (voiced by Ivan Reitman) *(Terror dogs)Vinz Clortho *Library ghost (portrayed by Ruth Oliver) *Taxi driver ghost Cameo *Casey Kasem *Joe Franklin *Larry King *Roger Grimsby *Bill Walton *Ron Jeremy Equipment/Vehicle *Uniform *Proton pack *Trap *P.K.E. meter *Ecto goggles *Ghost Sniffer *Motorola MT500 Radio *Ecto-1 *Storage facility Places/Locations *Dana's apartment *Sedgewick Hotel *Firehouse *University *New York City Public Library *Camp Oconda *55 Central Park West Release The DVD version of the movie was released and became one of the fastest selling units ever on Reel.com. Sony had announced at Comic-Con 2008 that the Blu-Ray version of the film was to be released on October 21, 2008, however it was recently announced that the Blu-Ray release will be postponed until sometime in 2009. Ghostbusters is to be the first film ever officially released on a USB flashdrive. Category:Ghostbusters Movie Category:films